BEA: The Year of the Dragon

Dragons seem to be very popular right now, and we saw a several new and forthcoming books at BEA with a dragon theme:

• Candlewick Press is expanding their popular Dragonology line with several interesting new entries. Dragonology: Tracking and Taming Dragons Volume 1, available now, is a boxed set containing a 24 page handbook on capturing and taming dragons, and a hanging model of a dragon to assemble. The model has gold foil details. Since this is volume 1, I assume there will be other volumes as well, probably with different dragons. Candlewick is also introducing a series of Dragonology themed novels called The Dragonology Chronicles. The first entry, The Dragon's Eye, will be available in December.


• In October, Hyperion will be publishing The Last Dragon, by Silvana De Mari. The Last Dragon was translated from Italian and tells the story of the last elf and the last dragon, and a prophecy: When the last dragon and the last elf break the circle, the past and the future will meet, and the sun of a new summer will shine in the sky.


• October will also see the publication of Here, There Be Dragons, by James A. Owen and published by Simon & Schuster. In spite of the title and picture of a dragon on the cover, I'm not sure if there are actually any dragons in the book. It looks interesting nonetheless: three young men come into possession of an atlas of imaginary places, and set off on a voyage to the lands in the atlas.


• Wizards of the Coast (the Dungeons and Dragons people) has declared this to be the Year of Dragons, with new entries in the popular D&D tie-in series Dragonlance, Eberron, and Forgotten Realms. A Practical Guide to Dragons, due in October, looks like cross between Dragonology and the Dungeons & Dragons Monster manual. It should be of interest to dragon fans as well as D&D players. And after all, who knows dragons better than the D&D people?


• Wizards of the Coast will also be releasing two new books in their D&D-related series for young readers, Knights of the Silver Dragon. The two books, Prophecy of the Dragons and The Dragons Revealed are a two part story and will be released in June and August, respectively. The Knights of the Silver Dragon series may interest reluctant readers who like to play fantasy/adventure video or role-playing games.
  

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